The present invention relates to an enterprise-wide business process management system and method that operates across multiple and diverse computer platforms to deliver workflow-based business process management solutions.
Technological advances allow businesses today to rely more and more on computer systems to support business process operations. This reliance did not begin because of the latest computer technology; it began at the dawn of the computer era. However, with the high cost of early computer systems, many businesses had to focus computer operations on a few business processes. For example, accounting processes may have been computerized, but customer service operations remained manual.
As computer technology advanced, computer systems became better, faster, and cheaper. This advancement allowed businesses currently operating a small amount of computer systems to add systems to perform other functions across their enterprise. Often, these added systems were quite different from the earlier computer platforms.
Computer systems typically include operating systems. Operating systems are software programs that control the basic functions of the hardware. Advances in computer hardware technology often result in the development of new operating systems. For example, early computer systems were typically mainframe computers or minicomputers, accessed by terminals, with operating systems such as Unix and VAX/VMS. Current mainframe computers may run the LINUX operating system. For many business applications, mainframe computer systems or minicomputers have been replaced by desktop computers, often linked into computer networks and running operating systems such as the WINDOWS and LINUX operating systems. However, for high-speed and high-volume e-commerce transactions and other data intensive operations, state-of-the-art mainframe systems may be employed.
Although businesses increased their reliance on computer systems across their enterprise, many did not make wholesale system changes. Instead, some groups within an enterprise used one type of system while another group used a newer, and different, system. Each group would manage their own data on their own system.
Parallel with the increase in businesses using computer hardware systems came developments in computer software. One such development was computer-based business process management solutions. One type of solution incorporates a workflow management engine that allows a business to simulate the steps in a business process, identify data sources that support the process, prompt users for data, and make decisions based on the data provided. These computer-based solutions are restricted in their operation to a single computer system, that is, they cannot operate across diverse computer systems within the same enterprise.
These software solutions typically operate to replace manual process steps. For example, one process a business might routinely perform is mass mailings. These mailings may be targeted to different customer bases. A computer-based software solution for this process, incorporating a workflow manager, may allow a user to specify a type of mailing and the software may then assemble a mailing list and print out address labels. The business process would be modeled and each step in the process identified. Then data, such as names and addresses and associated categories, would be identified as well as user interfaces. Once developed, a workflow engine can implement the workflow and automate the mass mailing process.
Another area of the computer industry has also seen significant growth in recent years xe2x80x94the internet, and specifically the World Wide Web. The Web is a non-sequential presentation of information. Information sources are linked together through hypertext links. These links comprise locations on computer servers that contain information. A computer running a browser program is able to move from information location to information location by following the hypertext links. Moving about this web of information is made possible because of standardized operating programming languages and protocols used on the Web. Information is made available through Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) programs. These programs, or documents, tell a browser application how to display text and arrange graphics and provide hypertext links to other information. Under this system, any computer operating system running a browser application can access the information. In this way, the Web can operate across a variety of computer platforms. However, HTML documents and commands are superficial. They do not enable more complex tasks, such as searching for data or running other computer programs.
Another computer language, Extensible Markup Language (XML), has been developed to overcome the shortcomings of HTML and enable more powerful operations, such as e-commerce, over the Web. Also, XML has a place outside the Web, as a means for businesses to exchange and operate on data. XML implements the concept that data can be exchanged in the form of a document. These documents are independent of the data structure as the data was developed or is primarily used. Also, these documents can seamlessly use data from multiple sources.
The prior art includes computer-based software solutions for business process management. Many of these prior solutions are based on workflow managers. However, the prior art is unable to operate across different computer platforms to support business process management solutions. So, if a business process management solution was running on one computer platform, for example a mainframe computer, and needed data from another computer platform operating in the same business enterprise, such as a local area network (LAN) comprising personal computers, the business process management software could not access the LAN to get the data. Consequently, the enterprise must copy the data from the other computer platform onto the mainframe. This requirement puts the same data in at least two places, requiring both data sources to be updated when a change is made to the data. As a result, this requirement duplicates both computer resources and data management efforts.
What is needed is a business process management solution that operates across multiple and diverse computer platforms, allowing a workflow engine in the process management solution to access data and other system assets on any computer platform operating in the enterprise, thereby avoiding duplicating data and the need for wholesale replacement of computer systems.
The present invention provides a method for operating an enterprise-wide business process management software solution across multiple and diverse computer platforms.
An innovative computer-based system for implementing business processes can access data existing on one or more of the computer platforms of an enterprise to implement workflows by a workflow engine. Workflows can be defined as computer software representations of an activity or activities performed by an enterprise comprising a business process. A workflow engine is a computer software program component that operates on the computer software comprising the workflow to automate the activity. For an enterprise, a business process can be broken into business rules that define the process. These business rules can then be categorized into work element categories and translated into workflow elements. Data for supporting the workflow can be identified, including sources of that data within the enterprise. Delegates, which are discrete segments of computer code that can represent a business rule, can be designed to implement each individual workflow element. For example, a delegate can retrieve data from a computer platform other than the platform hosting a workflow engine. The workflow can then be assembled and operated with the workflow engine to accomplish the business process, that is, to perform many of the workflow elements in an automated fashion.
A delegate can represent a process step, or business rule, that is unique to the workflow for which it was designed. For example, the delegate can comprise a risk calculation unique to the business process and enterprise. A different delegate can represent a generic process step, such as prompting a user for an account number. A more generic delegate may be able to be used in more than one workflow. These more generic delegates may be stored in a delegate library, allowing a workflow designer to reuse these delegates when assembling different workflows. These delegates may comprise XML documents and multiple delegates can be assembled into an XML document comprising the computer software, or code, for a workflow. Additionally, to aid in developing the computer code for the workflow, delegates may be categorized by the type of task they perform. This categorization may be used to assemble a workflow using a visual design tool.
The aspects of the present invention may be more clearly understood and appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the disclosed embodiments and by reference to the drawings and claims.